It sounds like a bit of Bachja. That there is a Power outside us nobody denies; that this Power works for our good and wisely is not so hard to grant when the facts of the soul are weighed with the facts of Nature. Power, Love, Wisdom—there you have a real trinity which makes up the Jewish God. And in this God we trust—incomprehensible as are His ways, unintelligible as is His essence. "Thy ways are not My ways, nor thy thoughts My thoughts." That comes into collision with no modern philosophies—we appeal to experience, and make no demands upon the faculty for believing things "because they are impossible." And we are proud and happy in that the dread Unknown God of the infinite universe has chosen our race as the medium by which to reveal His will to the world. We are sanctified to His service. History testifies that this has verily been our mission, that we have taught the world Religion as truly as Greece has taught Beauty and Science. Our miraculous survival through the cataclysms of ancient and modern dynasties is a proof that our mission is not yet over.'
The sonata came to an end. Percy Saville started a comic song, playing his own accompaniment. Fortunately, it was loud and rollicking.
'And do you really believe that we are sanctified to God's service?' said Esther, casting a melancholy glance at Percy's grimaces.
'Can there be any doubt of it? God made choice of one race to be messengers and apostles, martyrs at need to His truth. Happily the sacred duty is ours,' he said earnestly, utterly unconscious of the incongruity that struck Esther so keenly. And yet, of the two, he had by far the greater gift of humour. It did not destroy his idealism, but kept it in touch with things mundane. Esther's vision, though more penetrating, lacked this corrective of humour, which makes always for breadth of view. Perhaps it was because she was a woman that the trivial sordid details of life's comedy hurt her so acutely that she could scarce sit out the play patiently. Where Raphael would have admired the lute, Esther was troubled by the little rifts in it.
'But isn't that a narrow conception of God's revelation?' she asked.
'No. Why should God not teach through a great race as through a great man?'
'And you really think that Judaism is not dead, intellectually speaking?'
'How can it die? Its truths are eternal, deep in human nature, and the constitution of things. Ah, I wish I could get you to see with the eyes of the great Rabbis and sages in Israel; to look on this human life of ours, not with the pessimism of Christianity, but as a holy and precious gift, to be enjoyed heartily, yet spent in God's service—birth, marriage, death, all holy; good, evil, alike holy. Nothing on God's earth common or purposeless; everything chanting the great song of God's praise, "The morning stars singing together," as we say in the Dawn Service.'
As he spoke Esther's eyes filled with strange tears. Enthusiasm always infected her, and for a brief instant her sordid universe seemed to be transfigured to a sacred joyous reality, full of infinite potentialities of worthy work and noble pleasure. A thunder of applausive hands marked the end of Percy Saville's comic song. Mr. Montagu Samuels was beaming at his brother's grotesque drollery. There was an interval of general conversation, followed by a round game, in which Raphael and Esther had to take part. It was very dull, and they were glad to find themselves together again.
'Ah, yes,' said Esther sadly, resuming the conversation as if there had been no break; 'but this is a Judaism of your own creation. The real Judaism is a religion of pots and pans. It does not call to the soul's depths like Christianity.'